Well-Posedness of the Ericksen–Leslie System

Abstract

We prove the local well-posedness of the Ericksen–Leslie system, and the global well-posedness for small initial data under a physical constraint condition on the Leslie coefficients, which ensures that the energy of the system is dissipated. Instead of the Ginzburg–Landau approximation, we construct an approximate system with the dissipated energy based on a new formulation of the system.